Airport Owner: Was Regional Airports (RAL) till December 2008. Now owned by the Stobart Group,

2.12.2008 “Stobart announces that it has conditionally agreed to acquire London
Southend Airport (‘Southend Airport’) from Regional Airports Limited (‘RAL’) for
a maximum consideration of £21.0 million, of which £5.0 million will be due on
achievement of certain aspects of the airport’s development (the ‘Acquisition’).
Stobart also announces an associated conditional placing of £11.5 million. The
initial consideration of £16.0 million will be satisfied from the placing proceeds
and a vendor loan note of £6.0 million. The Acquisition is conditional upon Admission
of the Consideration shares. ” http://www.stobartgroup.co.uk/

Analysis of flights, routes, and top 10 destinations from Southend Airport in 2011. Also carbon emissions.
And passenger growth and numbers over the past 15 years. http://www.awsw.co.uk/allco2/SEN_co2.html

** This increase was because of Fordair flights to and from Koln being moved
from Stansted. The more recent decline reflects the fact that this company no
longer operates and Ford uses commercial flights to ferry its personnel between
its UK and German locations.

Southend Airport Master Plan July 2005

Re-introduce passenger flights to European and UK cities to a level of around
20 arriving and 20 departing a day by 2015, equating to about 150 passengers in
each direction per daytime hour;

Provide modern facilities for air passengers integrated with rail and road systems
for ease of access for all users;

Promote Southend and the area to help to regenerate the Thames Gateway and bring
economic benefits to the region;

Create several hundred new jobs in addition to the 1,200 at present;

Develop in a sustainable and responsible way by for example carrying out noise
and air quality studies, and evaluating permitted night hour aircraft movements;

Play its part in any necessary road improvements in conjunction with local authorities
and transport providers.

Airport Website states:

“AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT

The Airport is embarking on a major redevelopment programme which is split into
two distinct phases.

Phase One starts in 2007 and is aimed for completion in 2009. This significant
programme includes a new control tower, dedicated railway station, hotel, car
park and improved terminal building. Recently you may have noticed work has started
for a new onsite car park. The car park will provide approximately 220 spaces
and will have appropriate perimeter security and CCTV. Work should be completed
by March next year, in order for work to commence on the airport hotel in Spring
2008.

Phase Two involves the building of an entirely new, resited terminal building
and a runway extension. The latter, whilst modest in size, would allow the Airport
to accommodate the new generation of medium capacity, high-efficiency jets being
adopted by regional airlines operating scheduled flights and shorter range holiday
charters. This development phase is at the advanced planning stage with permissions
and approvals sought to enable work to commence in 2009 for completion by 2011
– coincident with the London Olympics. ”

EasyJet announced in June 2011 that they had signed a ten-year contract with Stobart Group, to operate (commencing April 2012) around 70 flights per week from Southend initially, with the three Airbus A319 aircraft to be based at the airport.

Flights to eight European destinations — Alicante, Amsterdam, Belfast, Barcelona, Faro, Ibiza, Majorca and Malaga will operate. In September 2011, Easyjet announced a ninth route from Southend to Jersey, which will start in May 2012.

German airline Jetisfaction aspire to commence a daily connection between Southend Airport and Münster Osnabrück International Airport in Germany. No launch date is known as yet

Aer Arran’s year-round scheduled passenger services re-started 27 March 2011 when it started daily services to Galway and Waterford in Ireland. But on 12 October 2011 Aer Arann announced that it would cease to operate the twice daily Galway route for the Winter season due to falling passenger numbers.It hopes to resume flights for the 2012 Summer Season.The Waterford route will continue to operate as normal.

As of Autumn 2011, Flybe have ceased to operate its service to Jersey.

The London Southend Airport Joint Area Action Plan (JAAP)

was first launched in June 2008, for consultation. Then the next 6-week phase of public consultation, on the preferred options, was published, on in February 2009.

The preferred option, unsurprisingly, is to extend the runway.

The consultation document stated:

“The preferred option for the future of the airport is based on the principles
outlined in the Airport Masterplan, but with the additional proposal of increasing the length of the runway to 1,799 metres. This addition has an important impact in terms of the capacity potential of the airport and its resultant attractiveness to airline operators. Currently the runway is an identified constraint on the operational growth of the airport. Lengthening the runway across Eastwoodbury Lane will enable aircraft with a seating capacity of 100-150 to be operated fully laden out of the airport for business and passenger uses, making the airport a more attractive fixed base for a wider range of operators. …….Under this scenario the airport is likely to grow faster to a capped passenger capacity of 2 mppa because given the new runway and railway station it has the potential to attract two or three fixed base operators to the airport in a relatively
short period of time.” ……… and there is much more ………..